Wolf in Man's Clothing: A Sarah Keate Mystery (11 page)

Just as I was about to catch the tail of a nap I began to think again of the telephone call to the police. Who had called them? And more important—tremendously important—
why
? In that answer, I thought suddenly, with that queerly elusive clarity one discovers on the edge of sleep, might lie the answer to the whole ugly problem.

After that I was wide awake for what was left of the night. Craig slept heavily and seemed none the worse for his mysterious peregrinations; Drue sat in an armchair near the bed with her starched cap off and her hair a little rumpled from pressing her head back against the cushions of the chair—her face pale, her eyes very dark, watching Craig’s sleeping face broodingly. It rained all that night, rain and sleet and rain again. We could hear nothing of what was going on in the house. Twice I got up and tiptoed into the hall, once going down the stairs, pausing again at the fern. But the syringe was really gone.

The hall below was deserted, but Nicky Senour and Peter Huber were sitting in the morning room in front of the fire, smoking. There were state troopers in the library; I went down into the hall and as far as the library door. No one stopped me and I wanted to see what they were doing. I was little wiser for my pains but convinced, if I had not been before, that they were in earnest about an investigation. For they had been taking fingerprints from smooth surfaces in the room; they had been using a tiny hand vacuum on furniture and rugs; the decanter of brandy had been removed; there were chalked crosses on the sofa and on the rug indicating, I thought, the position of Conrad Brent’s body. Pictures had been taken, then. But the body of Conrad Brent had been removed.

Two troopers were still there, one of them writing shorthand notes rapidly in a little tablet; the other blowing a small cloud of yellowish powder from a contrivance that looked like a tiny bellows upon one of the wooden panels across the room on the right side of the fireplace—a panel that I saw then, was actually a swinging door leading into a tiny washroom, for I could see walls tiled in shining, pale green beyond. He turned to look at me and the trooper with the tablet stopped writing to look at me, too, and there being, to say the least, no welcome in either look but rather the contrary, I retreated; anyway I had seen all I wanted to see. Nicky looked up as I passed through the hall but did not stop me. Peter however came out.

“Have you told Craig?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Better not for a while.”

“What was that noise, Mr. Huber? You remember—while you were calling the doctor. Did you find out about it?”

He frowned; his face looked tired and worried. “I didn’t find anybody,” he said. “I guess I’m not much of a detective. From the sound I thought a window had been broken somewhere, but I was wrong. I looked all along the hall leading toward the back of the house. But I found just nothing to account for it.”

“Could there have been some—some intruder? A thief, perhaps?”

Peter Huber shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll tell the police about it. I take it Craig is all right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“They took him away—Conrad Brent, I mean. I suppose they are doing an autopsy now.”

Nicky watched, bright eyes intensely curious, as I took my way upstairs again. That must have been about four or five o’clock—a cold, still, gusty February dawn. By six o’clock Craig hadn’t wakened. At about seven Beevens, clothed in his right mind as well as trousers and dark sack coat, brought Drue and me some coffee and toast. Breakfast would be along soon, he said; in the meantime he thought we might enjoy the coffee. He spoke to me and looked at Drue with a kind of sympathy and kindliness; naturally all the servants knew of her position in that household. Perhaps the romance of it appealed to them, but I think they liked her, too.

Beevens could tell us nothing, though, of what the police were doing and, looking very haggard himself with great puffs under his eyes, went away. After we drank the coffee and Drue nibbled at some toast because I made her, I sent her to her room. Sometime that day she would have to face the police and she’d had no sleep at all that night. So I made her rest; and thus I was alone with Craig when he awoke.

He awoke rather suddenly; in full possession of his senses. He looked white and tired, but his pulse was good. He had no temperature and the wound in his shoulder, while stiff and sore, seemed to be healing with normal rapidity.

He said almost at once, “Where is Drue?”

“In her room, resting.”

He looked at me, frowning a little. He was very sober, and there was a kind of authority about him. All at once I seemed to see a very faint likeness to his father—his nose, perhaps, and brown, decided chin: His eyes, however, were darker and had spirit and luminousness. His father’s eyes had been very cold and chill. He said, “You’re the other nurse. Yes, I remember you.”

“I’m Sarah Keate. I’ll ring for some breakfast. I think you can manage something light. …”

He interrupted me. “Listen, Nurse, something happened last night—something—I can’t remember. …”

I did not hesitate. “Nothing happened, except that you got out of bed once when I was out of the room and got a bump …”

He put his hand to his bandaged temple. “Why, yes,” he said. “I remember that! But something had happened downstairs. Somebody screamed. You left and I—I got up to see what it was. I put on slippers and a robe and …” he stopped. There was a sudden and clear recollection in his eyes.

I said, “And you fell …” and he said, shaking his head, “No. Somebody hit me.”

“
Somebody …
” I stopped with a kind of gulp.

He gave me a look of annoyance. “Don’t gargle,” he said briefly.

“B-but you said …”

“Certainly I said somebody hit me. Somebody did. I was just at the top of the stairs. I heard someone behind me and I turned and that’s all. Just as I turned it hit and I went out like a light. I remember that.”

Suddenly and completely I believed him. His look and his voice were perfectly clear and rational. I said, after a moment, “
Who
?”

“I don’t know. I tell you that’s all I remember except later—a long time later—Drue was here.” His voice when he said her name changed subtly, so it was grave and yet somehow warm and tender, as if it spoke a loved name. But he had left her and had let her shift for herself, without ever a word from him. A nurse’s life is not an easy one. I hardened my heart against him.

All at once he caught my wrist in a quick, impatient grip. “But what happened? Who screamed?”

So I told him. I would have evaded but I couldn’t. I knew an attempt would only make a bad matter worse and excite him unnecessarily. I did it as gently and as kindly as I could, and I reminded him that his father had had a bad heart condition apparently for years. I also said it had been quick.

I didn’t mention the police or Drue or the digitalis.

When I had told him I went to the window and stood there, my back to the room, looking out at the gray daylight. After a long time he called me.

“Yes?”

“Thanks …”

“It—it wasn’t unexpected,” I said again. “And it was mercifully quick.”

“Yes; yes—I’ll see the doctor when he comes, Nurse.”

“Certainly.” He hadn’t asked again about Drue’s scream, and I was thankful for it. He let me wash his face and ring to order breakfast. Anna answered the bell. “I’m sorry, Mr. Craig,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

“I—yes, Anna. Don’t cry.” He patted her hand a little, kindly, and she went quickly away. Almost at once Alexia came.

I was straightening the bed and thought it was Anna. Alexia was in the room before I realized it was not. She had dressed and wore a sleek black dress with white lace at her throat and small wrists. She came quickly to the bed and knelt there.

“Craig, they’ve told you …”

He looked at her for a moment without replying. There was a queer look on his face—a kind of grimness all at once that, again, made me think of his father yet was totally unlike, too, for it held sensibility, or concealed it, where his father’s look was only obstinate and a little cruel.

Alexia put one arm across him so her hand on the bed supported her and leaned very close to him. Her mouth was lightly lipsticked that morning and looked very tender and tremulous in spite of that full, cruel underlip; her misty, short, dark hair was a soft frame for her creamy, small face with its delicate features. She said, “I’m sorry, Craig. He was your father.”

Craig’s eyes narrowed. “He was your husband, Alexia.”

Her face didn’t change, unless her eyelids lowered a little; but I could see the curving lines of her body stiffen slightly. She said rather slowly, very musically, looking into Craig’s eyes, “I never needed to be reminded of that. You know that, Craig, better than anyone.”

There was a short silence. I prepared to remove the top blanket and thus oust Alexia, but as I moved to do so she said, “It’s horrible—the police and all, I mean! They found the revolver in Drue’s room.”

“
Drue
!
What do you mean
?
What about the police
?
What revolver
?”

“Really, Mrs. Brent, I’ll have to ask you to leave! My patient isn’t …” I was hurrying forward, my starchy uniform rattling.

Alexia silenced both of us. “Don’t try to think, my darling,” she said, putting her face against Craig’s. “Oh, Craig, you knew—you always knew I never loved Conrad. And now all that is ended for us both, my darling.”

Over her shoulder Craig’s eyes plunged into mine. “For God’s sake, what does she mean? What revolver?” he cried urgently.

W
ELL, I COULDN’T HAVE
told him even if I’d known, I was so livid and gibbering with rage. I put my hand on Alexia’s shoulder and may have taken a tighter grip even than I intended, for she wrenched herself away from me with a rather startled look and got quickly to her feet, clasping her shoulder with her other hand. “Nurse, you forget yourself! How dare you touch …”

“What revolver, Alexia?” demanded Craig again. “
What revolver
?”

Her eyes had retreated behind those soft, satiny eyelids. She said breathlessly, “Conrad’s revolver. It was in Drue’s room. The police found it.”

Craig was as white as the pillow, and I intended to put Alexia out of the room by sheer physical force if nothing else sufficed. He said, “But he wasn’t shot!”

“No! He wasn’t shot,” I said quickly. “He died of a heart attack, just as I told you. Now then, Mrs. Brent. …”

“But the police,” said Craig. “Why are they here?”

“Someone called them.” Alexia answered him. “No one knows who. But someone got on the telephone just after Conrad died and told the police your father had been murdered. So they came, and they are going to investigate his death. …”

“
Murder
!” said Craig. “
But that’s impossible
!” He made a motion to get up, winced as he moved his shoulder and turned even whiter. Peter Huber knocked, entered quickly, stopped as quickly as he seemed to sense something electric in the atmosphere and then said, “It’s only—well, they want you downstairs, Alexia. Right away. They are waiting. You too, Nurse Keate.” His eyes went past us to Craig, and he said, “You’ve told him?”

Behind him on the threshold Anna appeared with the tray. “I’m not going,” I said. “I’m on duty.”

“Is it the police, Peter?” asked Craig.

Peter Huber nodded. “Craig, I’m sorry about your father. …”

Craig closed his eyes as if to shut out talk of that. “Yes, Pete,” he said. There was a little silence while Anna went to the bed with the tray and I followed her. Craig looked up at me. “Go on down,” he said. “Anna will stay with me. Don’t you see, I’ve got to know. …”

“I’ll tell you, Craig. I’ll tell you everything the police do.” Alexia started toward the bed, stopped as I straightened up rather abruptly from adjusting the pillows and looked hard at her, said softly to Craig, “Don’t think, darling. Don’t try to think now. I’ll be back,” and went out the doör. Peter came to the bed and Craig said again to me, “Please go downstairs, Miss Keate. I want you to tell me everything they do. …”

So in the end I went; not because of the police, but merely to keep Craig’s temperature down. Anna stayed with him and Peter Huber, too, for a while, although they sent for him also before that morning’s long inquiry was over.

It lasted nearly three hours. Three hours of steady questions and answers—statements, repetitions, explanations, and probably a few lies, spoken or implied. But there was no way of identifying those.

It was already under way when I entered the little morning room, with its ivory woodwork, green and rose chintz, and blazing wood fire.

Everyone except Craig, and for the moment, Peter, was there: Lieutenant Nugent and two troopers, very lean, and silent as their chief; a man in gray, fat and rosy-cheeked with winking eyeglasses who proved to be the District Attorney (so I knew, then, that they were sure it was murder); Nicky; and Alexia who was, subtly, a broken reed. Their two faces were so much alike, so secretive, so delicate and beautiful that it was as if one was the mirror of the other; as if some deep affinity joined their very thoughts. Which, as a matter of fact, was very far from the truth.

Maud was there, too, little and indomitable in sweeping black with her pompadour rising high above her narrow, sallow, little forehead, her collar of boned white net lifting her little dark chin in the air, and her eyes brooding and angry, watching the police, watching Nicky and Alexia—watching even me, fixedly. I don’t think a move or a look or a quickened pulse escaped her eager, antlike eyes. Claud Chivery wasn’t there.

Then I saw Drue; she was sitting in a tall armchair, her hands around the arm of it, her white cap like a crown upon her shining hair. She was very pale; her dark gray eyes had a kind of terrified stillness. I thought she tried to communicate with me, mutely, with her look, and I tried, mutely, to remind her of danger, and in the same fractional glance that I was on her side. So it was a rather complicated glance, I daresay; certainly it didn’t seem to accomplish anything in the way of improving the situation.